The media IS the Democraptic party!

President Trump Baits the Hook

Donald Trump is all bait. It is the essence of his existence, his governing principle. Herds of stray cats follow him around because he smells like a bag of musty tuna. He is one of those creepy deep-sea monster fish, all eyes and teeth and dangled glowing lure. Every tweet is a ladle of chum tossed into the water. It takes a special kind of self-control to lay off, but you have to if you want to keep everyone's eyes fixed on what matters, and not on whatever is scrolling across the careening Times Square ticker-tape screen that passes for his mind.

Why is there a law against collecting information about gun use?

Politics of Two parties on a hot button issue.

There's no law against it, but the NRA has successfully lobbied congress not to fund it.

What I don't understand is why people care about firearm related anything when it's such a small portion of what kills people every year. The medical industry as a whole unintentionally kills something crazy like 400,000 people a year. Wrong medications, misused prescriptions, screw ups in treatment.

Cancer kills 600,000
Heart disease another 600,000
Respiratory diseases 150,000
Accidents 150,000 (of which some are firearm related)
Stroke 130,000
Alzheimers 90,000
Diabetes 80,000
Influenza and pneumonia 55,000
Nephritis (No clue what that is) 48,000
Suicide, (of which some are with firearms) 43,000

I just don't see how such a statistically insignificant number is such a hot button with people

Doesn't mean there are no independent studies... for instance
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/24/5-facts-about-the-nra-and-guns-in-america/

But as always, the question of who funded the study will always make them suspect...

I am sure the FBI has some compiled data.... but it will take an act of congress to get it.

You're also forgetting Hospital Acquired Infections... MERSA being one.... some nasty ****

35,092 traffic deaths in 2015 (last full year data)

It's because we can put a finger on the cause - we can point to the responsible individual and we know how to eliminate a significant percentage of those deaths if we could find a way to accept the trade-off of some aspect of gun ownership. Gun deaths are such a hot topic because we are able to make a reduction in the undeserved deaths with action. People ARE trying desperately to find a cancer cure, stroke cure, Alzheimers cure....they're getting support, aid, money...nobody is standing there with a cancer cure while somebody else screams at them about their rights to have cancer. The reality of most of the other deaths you listed is that any solution to those is still largely a scary random shot in the dark (pun unintentional) that might or might not work. A solution is unknown. Guns? Keeping guns out of the hands of people likely to murder with them? Researching and investing in ways to prevent needless deaths at the hands of an **** with a gun? yeah...even the table won't survive that conversation about how to get started.

Automotive accident deaths are probably the most comparable scenario - limits on driving require a balance of acceptable limits on speed and maneuvering to the ability of the technology to maintain it safely vs. the convenience and economical considerations of getting to where you need to go in a reasonable time frame and with a reasonable amount of risk. If we all drove at 5mph everywhere, those death by accidents would probably be almost nothing...but that's not very practical. Neither is allowing everyone to drive at 120mph and accepting a huge increase in accidental deaths. Collectively (and through elected leadership) we basically come to an agreement on how many automotive accident deaths are worth the tradeoff in the convenience and economical benefits related to speed and other limits. You can absolutely look at gun technology in the same way. However, it's such an emotionally charged and irrational issue that we can't even start to talk about HOW many deaths from a gun, or type of gun, are acceptable.

BTW, Trump just made it easier for mentally unstable people to own a gun two days ago by reversing a rule that Obama had put in place to tie government disability support for mental conditions be an item that would show up on a background check to own a firearm. (that one was signed without media photos and in the background of a lot of other publicized noise on other topics)

Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House

The past few days have brought a growing list of confirmed communications between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials, with each new revelation adding to a cloud of suspicion that hangs over the White House as critics demand an independent investigation.

Texting while driving is a supremely stupid way to kill someone or yourself.

How long before we mandate a motion sensor in the car that shuts off the outgoing phone signal when you are moving??

Kidney failure.... major preventative measures. Moderate your drinking..... stay off the protein supplements.

Its a value question. Do you value mitigating individual suffering by progressive taxation funding government managed public health campaigns and restrictive laws or taxes.
Or
Do you value your libertarian sense of personal responsibility and autonomy and tolerate the deaths as necessary cost of your free society.

Middle ground is ????

This.

Thre middle ground is the libertarian approach. The far right approach is no oversight whatsoever, commonly called anarchy.

Jake, I know what you're saying, but the majority of three things on that list can are for the most part avoidable by taking better care of yourself.

Karl... fair try to capture the high ground by suggesting that Anarchy is a viable choice for organizing society. Nope!... 5000 years of civilization has left us with Social Democracy versus Libertarians. You can't imply libertarianism is virtuous because it is in the middle.

No pass. The bounds in this country are between some reflection of libertariansim and some reflection of social democracy.

Interestingly... where does the idea that moderation ... being in the middle is virtuous.... compromise is a moral high ground, if you will come from? I set it up that way... you implicitly agreed.

So, what are your values grounded in so that the middle ground is

good

?

nothing?, might makes right? who has the most money? just the means to an end you want... civil /philosophical principles? theology? which theology?

This inquiry is the foundation for seeing the middle ground as a compromise, ie. a morally superior solution,

OR see the middle ground as a temporary circumstance forced down your throat and you will reverse it ASAP.

Pick an issue..... nephritis... or gun regulations. What are your principles and how do they inform your value that is essentially libertarian.

It's good that you are a libertarian because your ideas will never be tested. 

Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House

Two days after the presidential election, a Russian official speaking to a reporter in Moscow offered a surprising acknowledgment: The Kremlin had been in contact with Donald Trump’s campaign. The claim, coming amid allegations that Russia had interfered with the election, was met with an immediate no-wiggle-room, blanket denial from Trump’s spokeswoman. “It never happened,” Hope Hicks told the Associated Press at the time. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

In fact, it is now clear it did happen.

Alternative Facts

President Trump on Saturday angrily accused former president Barack Obama of orchestrating a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap the phones at his Trump Tower headquarters last fall in the run-up to the election. Citing no evidence to support his explosive allegation, Trump said in a series of five tweets sent Saturday morning that Obama was “wire tapping” his New York offices before the election in a move he compared to McCarthyism.

Trump, citing no evidence, accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ plot to wiretap Trump Tower

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

You need to seek help.

Take Nixon in the deepest days of his Watergate paranoia, subtract 50 IQ points, add Twitter, and you have Trump today.
---Bruce Bartlett, adviser to Ronald Reagan

Surely. I'm looking for truth. What are you, Schwantz, Todd and Carl looking for? Alternate facts?

The difference is that you have a great deal of control over taking better care of yourself with regards to those health issues. When an idiot shows up with a gun and kills you, you have practically no control in that situation.

<**** or John Anthony West, they've got some cool insights on how old civilization is. Not important to this, just some interesting shi!t.

No, I don't agree with this either. We have far left, and left. There isn't too many in our government that stand up for things like personal freedom, though the masses may cry out against things, their votes speak differently. On the economic side, there's even fewer. I spend far more paying taxes than I get to pay myself to support the social democracy.

Please re-write this sentence in a coherent fashion.

I value personal responsibility. Self sufficiency when possible. Acting in an honorable way, and not taking advantage of those who can be. Too many in our small view of this world take no responsibility, are far from self sufficient on any measure, and have no honor of any kind. Basically, I'm not here to rely on you, you aren't here to rely on me, and we shouldn't be f ucking one another over. Seems simple right?

You're starting to get repetitive Mark.

-Might apparently does make right in this society. Ever try to tell a police officer to go f uck himself when he tells you you have to wear a seatbelt? Ever have your plans completely crushed because the treasury decides it needs another $50,000.00 from you last year then see what happens when you tell them to go f uck themselves? They call in the gov't for muscle and you either pay and sidetrack your life, or go to jail.
-Apparently money helps, though I get by, I'm a long ways from buying my way out of problems. You gotta go past the 1% to get into that realm. More like the .00001%
-Everything is a means to an end. As an example, you drop a dollar into some charity, the means in the dollar, the end is you pretend to feel better about yourself. I go to work so I can eat, and have a roof.
-Theology? I'm not going there. Religion in any form is not for me, I'm far too skeptical of that sort of thing.

You're making stuff up for the middle ground as being anything, much less morally superior.

Everything is temporary. You're temporary, I'm temporary our government is temporary, our specie is temporary, our solar system is temporary. Done being dramatic in your choice of words yet?

Picking an issue, you should be free to do what you want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. You want to smoke meth, have at it. You want to own firearms, have at it. I'm sick of being controlled on almost every front. I was just born in the wrong time. I would've been better suited to living even a hundred years ago. Humans are genetically the same as they were 40k years ago, I ain't cut out for this sh!t.

So people are lazy? They aren't willing to take control and take better care of themselves, so they want a small bandaid fix on what is in actuality a non-issue to make them feel better about being an overweight slob?

You can't fix crazy. There's a lot of people on this planet, some of them are going to do some f ucked up things, the tools don't matter. I'm not sure removing an essential part of the checks and balances our government is built around is wise.

I'm not sure what you mean by a

non-issue

...you talking about gun related deaths?

Absolutely people are lazy. There are a lot of ways a people can negatively impact their health and we all do at least some of them. It would be insane to expect that level of governance to make people take care of themselves (with regards to something that mostly impacts the person who's responsible himself). Bandaid? Gun deaths? I'm not an overweight slob and I would feel better if we at least made some sort of effort to reduce the number of gun related deaths. I want our society to thrive and advances...making this place safer, more comfortable, easier to live and thrive in so the people that DO take care of themselves have an easier path to success and enjoying life. It's important to me that people don't needlessly lose their lives in a way that is out of their control but that can be prevented.

You can actually make a pretty significant impact on crazy...for starters, making it harder for people who are certifiably crazy, and getting government assistance because of it (because that an easy list to create), to buy a gun (you know, the bit Trump just undid). You can also improve the mental health care in the country (which, BTW, is a really poorly run system). Background checks can certainly be improved. You can make guns, or certain types of guns, harder or impossible to obtain. There are plenty of examples of these things, and more, that have simply saved lives.

I'm lost on your point about checks-n-balances part - are you referring to guns again or something else?

so... your guiding principle is uber individualism and hyper self sufficiency for which you value a strict libertarian points of view. Moreover, you recognize that you are out of step with a large majority of the country.

So...
How do you compromise.... or find a middle ground with the world....

Where do you stand when another individuals concerns are unavoidable conflict with yours?

Where is there room for negotiation and compromise with a liberal like my self who grounds their values in the philosophy of

do unto other's as you would have them do to you

?

Miss you Karl!! [End BroMance]

Hahahahahahahahaha!!

Seeded in jealousy: President Trump is comparing his rough month to Obama’s achievements

Even as Trump was making groundless claims that his White House predecessor, Barack Obama, had wiretapped him, Trump was also fuming that Obama had achieved more during the first month-and-a-half of his presidency than Trump has pulled off in the same period of time, according to The Washington Post. This has forced Trump to focus on reimplementing his notorious Muslim travel ban, as well as concentrate on a repeal-and-replace bill for the Affordable Care Act while temporarily setting aside everything else in his legislative agenda.

Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations

Trump was mad — steaming, raging mad.

Trump’s young presidency has existed in a perpetual state of chaos. The issue of Russia has distracted from what was meant to be his most triumphant moment: his address last Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. And now his latest unfounded accusation — that Barack Obama tapped Trump’s phones during last fall’s campaign — had been denied by the former president and doubted by both allies and fellow Republicans.

Any suggestions on a starting point?

Don't be messin' with the brothers...

Gun sales have dropped since Trump’s election, except among people scared of his administration

But that overall decline has been accompanied by some unusual growth: Gun clubs and shops that cater to black and LGBT clients say there has been an uptick in interest in firearms since November among those who fear that racial and gender-based violence could increase during Donald Trump’s presidency.